Reinstall of XP reversed my drive letters. Why?

[Guest]

Motherboard crashed, replaced it, no problem. Locked myself out, not sure how
that happened, did a reinstall, and now my backup drive is letter "C" and my
main drive is now "D". My XP system is running off of the "D" and all my
stuff is still on my spare drive which is now "C". I swear I touched
nothing!! I can't change the drive letter because it has the OS on it. Any
suggestions other than a reformat of my main disk drive that used to be "C"
but is now the "D" drive!

 

[LabRat]

=?Utf-8?B?S2thdA==?= voiced his/her/it's humble opinion in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support on Mon 18 Dec 2006
06:27:00p:

Motherboard crashed, replaced it, no problem. Locked myself out, not
sure how that happened, did a reinstall, and now my backup drive is
letter "C" and my main drive is now "D". My XP system is running off
of the "D" and all my stuff is still on my spare drive which is now
"C". I swear I touched nothing!! I can't change the drive letter
because it has the OS on it. Any suggestions other than a reformat of
my main disk drive that used to be "C" but is now the "D" drive!

Same kind of crap happening with me. 98SE on C:. XP on D: Couple of
other partitions and a second drive. 98 anD Xp showed differEnt
designations when viewed in their respective Explorers. No prob so far.
Then for some reason everything took a crap and now 98 on C: XP on G:

XP still shows as installed on the second primary partition with second
drive seperate E:, with F: and G: in extended partitions of primary
drive. Go figure but it all seems to function.

Wondering now what's going to happen when I pull the secondary drive out.
Will it all collapse like a house of cards? Will Billy G.s brainchild
software keep it all afloat?

When the plug is pulled will the brain survive or must the plug be re-
inserted rectally?

Stay tuned next week. Same time, same channel

Oh yeah, Merry XMas

Later......

LabRat...... |:^{)

 

[Guest]

Simple enough,you had other drives connected when you installed xp,manually
unplug all but the hd to be C: From here,a format & install xp are the
only options

 

[Anna]

Motherboard crashed, replaced it, no problem. Locked myself out, not sure
how
that happened, did a reinstall, and now my backup drive is letter "C" and
my
main drive is now "D". My XP system is running off of the "D" and all my
stuff is still on my spare drive which is now "C". I swear I touched
nothing!! I can't change the drive letter because it has the OS on it. Any
suggestions other than a reformat of my main disk drive that used to be
"C"
but is now the "D" drive!

Kkat:
Not that this will be much comfort to you but it's not an uncommon problem.
It's always best in situations like this that if at all possible the user
should disconnect all secondary HDDs following the installation of a new
motherboard and *before* booting to the primary HDD. Better yet is to
disconnect any secondary HDD *prior* to the installation of a new
motherboard. This avoids potential problems such as the one you're now
experiencing.

But what's done is done. At this point you have two choices...

1. You can live with the present situation where your system/boot HDD has
the D: drive letter assignment, or,

2. You can make a fresh install of the OS on the original system/boot HDD
(after disconnecting your present C: HDD. Then, after booting to what will
be your "new" C: system/boot drive, connect the other HDD as a secondary one
and copy over your "stuff" to the new C: drive. That will be your
user-created data. You will have to install your programs/applications to
the new C: drive and download/install all the MS critical updates since SP2
(assuming you're using a XP installation CD with SP2 to fresh install the
OS).
Anna

 

[Guest]

Thanks Anna, When I put in my new board I did it right. The problem came
about when I checked or unchecked something and locked myself out of
windows. Not thinking...wrong thing to do around computers...I figured I'd
just reinstall XP not realizing that it would do the change up. I can
understand it moving all the drive letters up one, but it switched my two
drives. Made my back up "C" which is still a backup and assigned my OS disk
with the "D". I'm going to try to just reinstall XP, with my backup drive
unplugged... and see if that solves it. Which it sounds like it should.
Another question...somewhere are my folders for Outlook express and
microsoft outlook, right? Do they get written over in a reinstall? I found my
address but the folders I can't locate. Where and what to look for would be a
great help!!! Thanks...Kkat

 

[Anna]

Thanks Anna, When I put in my new board I did it right. The problem came
about when I checked or unchecked something and locked myself out of
windows. Not thinking...wrong thing to do around computers...I figured I'd
just reinstall XP not realizing that it would do the change up. I can
understand it moving all the drive letters up one, but it switched my two
drives. Made my back up "C" which is still a backup and assigned my OS
disk
with the "D". I'm going to try to just reinstall XP, with my backup drive
unplugged... and see if that solves it. Which it sounds like it should.
Another question...somewhere are my folders for Outlook express and
microsoft outlook, right? Do they get written over in a reinstall? I found
my
address but the folders I can't locate. Where and what to look for would
be a
great help!!! Thanks...Kkat

Kkat51:
I really don't think reinstalling XP to your present system/boot HDD (the
one designated as D will change the drive letter back to C:. even if you
disconnect the one now designated as C:. But there's probably no harm in
trying. I think that in the final analysis you will have to undertake the
process that I indicated in item 2. above, i.e., making a fresh install of
XP etc.

When you refer to the location of your email folders I assume you're
referring to the data in those folders. Aren't they on your present D: drive
within each email program? Is the data missing from those email programs?

Anyway, let us know how you make out.
Anna